The printing and publishing industry has long used folding machines to fold paper stock into many different configurations. Folding machines have conventionally been used to fold everything from leaflets and sheets of regular paper to card stock. Folding machines have also been used to form pocketed folders; however, these pocketed folders had substantially no width to their pockets. The pocket was formed by a single fold. These general purpose paper folding machines typically employed a first roller assembly which included many folding rollers which operated in conjunction with fold pans supported on a parallel fold pan rail at differing levels adjacent to the folding rollers. Paper or card stock passed through a set of rollers would travel through the roller pair and engage the fold pan, whereupon the stock buckled and returned through a folding roller pair.
The prior art flat pocketed folders could be used to hold a few sheets of paper, but could not be used to hold a large number of papers or anything thicker than a few pieces of paper. To form a pocketed folder with a wide edge, using two folds, such that a large number of papers or something larger than a few pieces of paper could be put in the folder, the folders had to be formed by hand. These wide edged, pocketed card stock or paper folders could range through any size and could even take the form of a small box. The main problem was that manufacturing was time consuming since it was done by hand.